Weird charging problems

[Speedo]

Support ShirazDrum if you can

BTW, here we are - well me not in photo taking it and ShirazDrum (Chris Sorbi) in my garage wrenching on our bikes night before last. Please support this guy doing a brave thing for a great cause.

[posplayr]

This is really good advice. While ShirazDrum was here we tested the brake light switch on my bike that the RR sense wire was hooked to and it was about 9v. Not good. That tells the RR to keep charging the battery even if not needed (due to voltage drop over the years on old wire)....will cook your battery

Shiraz suggested wiring RR sense wire directly to battery positive in my case (which effectively "by-passes" sense wire). I will probably wire sense wire into my 'hot to coil' wire from relay after the coil mod as it tested out at 11.9v.

Does this make any sense to you?

That is essentially what I described

[psyguy]

educate me further please

with the sense wire connected directly to the batt positive:

tested at 2000rpm (charging measured at the battery):
- headlight OFF = 14.30V
- headlight ON = 14.15V



the previous reading with the sense wire on the main switched positive (this spot has 0.7V drop compared to the battery):

tested at 2000rpm (charging measured at the battery):
- headlight OFF = 14.8V
- headlight ON = voltage jumps to 15.6V

so, what should i take from this all??

.

[KiwiGS]

with the sense wire connected directly to the batt positive:

tested at 2000rpm (charging measured at the battery):
- headlight OFF = 14.30V
- headlight ON = 14.15V



the previous reading with the sense wire on the main switched positive (this spot has 0.7V drop compared to the battery):




so, what should i take from this all??

.

That there is a small volt drop/high resistance in the circuit that you had the sense wire connected to and your charging system is working as it should.

[Speedo]

Indeed. Sounds like you are 'good' dude (err, 'mate'). Ride and enjoy.

ps Congrats to Aussies making it in again to 2010 world cup. Damn Hungarians blew it (again). Go All-Blacks in the playoffs

[Matchless]

Psyguy,
OK you have just proven that your R/R and stator are good, but that your orignal take off point for the R/R sense wire was not too good and has a lower voltage than the full battery voltage.
You need to just correct this permanently.

Options:
1) As you already know, you usually you need a switched point for the sense lead, meaning with 12V always present on the R/R sense wire it could drain a very tiny bit of current when the motor is shut down and maybe discharge the battery over a long period of not riding. For direct connection to the battery, a fuse in this line (5A) is a must for safety and you could temporary ride like that if you ride most days.

2) With bike off and ignition switched on, measure voltage across the battery and then between the battery negative pole and the fuses on your fuse box. See what is the lowest and check if the drop is in your fuse box or in your ignition switch. Try and clean the fuses and the fuse holder brass clips or replace. If its the ignition switch, battery 12V will go out on the main fuse at very close to battery voltage, but return to the other fuses at noticeably lower voltage and may need the ignition switch electrical contacts and any harness connectors in that wire path to the ignition switch and back cleaned. Sometimes a new ignition switch may be required.

3) Fit a coil relay modification as you will most likely have this same lower voltage at your coils, this then bypasses the ignition switch and feeds full battery via a new fresh wire and fuse directly to the coils and connect your sense wire to the battery wire at the coils. The load is taken off your 30 year old and tired switch and is then only used to switch the relay which is not bothered whether there is a slight voltage drop.

I would suggest doing all three options unless you sort the problem out in option 2 and then find your present take off point is now usable and has minimal voltage drop. Which is fairly unlikely unless you really do a back to new type cleaning job.

I have a coil relay mod guide on my site and it is working on my own bike.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=3a0ab726f6117e564012e8015643d9c85717b31bfbde8fc1

[psyguy]

thanks for the tutorial, matchless

2) With bike off and ignition switched on, measure voltage across the battery and then between the battery negative pole and the fuses on your fuse box. See what is the lowest and check if the drop is in your fuse box or in your ignition switch.

here's the situation:




when i measure the voltage at the orange wire at the 4-way block connector comming back from the ignition switch but disconnected from the fuse box (as in the picture above, see the single male bullet connector on the orange wire, disconnected from the double female bullet connector going to the fuse box) i get practically the same voltage as at the battery.
the double bullet connector is also where the white RR sense wire connects to.
i assume this would indicate that there are NO signifficant loses in the circuit from the battery through the ignition switch back to the fuse box, right?

however, when i connect the orange wire to the fuse box (through the double bullet connector), i get a drop of 0.7V, measured at the 4-way connector, i.e. before the bullet connector.


all the above measurements are with the headlight OFF.

[Matchless]

Psyguy,
When you were testing, you were reading in an open circuit with no current flowing, if you had to do the test with the wires plugged in and the headlight on the 0.7 V would most likely be over 1.0 V and with the bike running maybe even slightly higher.

In actual fact your present sense take off point is in the most ideal position and only has the main fuse and the ignition switch between it and the battery.

You could maybe measure how many mA flow in the sense wire with the bike off, just for peace of mind that you must have a switched take off point. I am not sure if there are sense type regulators that can stay directly connected to the battery without drawing any current. Have not used or tested one in that way yet.

Otherwise a dedicated 12 V relay just to switch the sense wire is just as good. The coil mod is then really just a way of killing two flies with one swat.

[posplayr]

"Double Bullet Connectors" in the charging loop??? Please say it is NOT so??

That is how you burn up an R/R and stator!!!!

All those bullet connectors are going to cause a problem and already seem to be causing a problem. 0.7 volts Is that at idle?

Maybe someone (Matchless ???) will help here I cant bare it; You have to make all the voltage measurements under load. That means everything connected , fully charging and FOR SURE NOT OPEN!!!

thanks for the tutorial, matchless



here's the situation:




when i measure the voltage at the orange wire at the 4-way block connector comming back from the ignition switch but disconnected from the fuse box (as in the picture above, see the single male bullet connector on the orange wire, disconnected from the double female bullet connector going to the fuse box) i get practically the same voltage as at the battery.
the double bullet connector is also where the white RR sense wire connects to.
i assume this would indicate that there are NO signifficant loses in the circuit from the battery through the ignition switch back to the fuse box, right?

however, when i connect the orange wire to the fuse box (through the double bullet connector), i get a drop of 0.7V, measured at the 4-way connector, i.e. before the bullet connector.


all the above measurements are with the headlight OFF.

[Matchless]

Apologies Psyguy, I did not want to mention the connections at this stage, but seeing posplayr has brought it up.

He is correct, the orange wire must not be cut and have all of the bikes current flowing through a bullet connector. The double females are good for lower current applications, but are more prone to loosening its grip on the male connector and making bad contact than the singles over time. Thus not a good use for high current applications.

I suggest soldering it together and adding a T - off bit for the sensing wire, soldered on this same joint. The bullet connectors are not really a train smash if they are new and will work quite well for the sensing especially if they are properly crimped and/or soldered with dielectric grease on them.

Your inline fuse as seen in the picture is a very weak link though, that one carries the full output of your new alternator (I am assuming that is the red wire from the R/R directly to the battery) and those are prone to break in half after a while! The also make very bad contact and are dependant on a spring pushing the fuse to make contact and not suitable for high current. I would suggest you replace it with a single in line fuse holder with a blade/spade type fuse.

But first localise the your voltage drop and find a new sense connection point or a dedicated switched bypass relay for it.

Was it you? I just heard a very faint groan of frustration from coming from a southerly direction!

[rustybronco]

psyguy,

On my GS850GT there were two areas of concern, when I was having almost a 2.0V drop when measured at the load side of the fuse panel.

first was with the 4 pin connector off the ignition switch, where corrosion (and the resultant heat) had caused the the plastic hard shell to melt. second was the corrosion of the brass terminals in the fuse box, which were fixed with a little soldering of each terminal and a little emery paper applied to each tang where the fuses contact those terminals.

I am now down to a .45 volt drop which is still to much. (the rest, more than likely, is the Ignition switch)

I would suggest you check these areas first.

[posplayr]

psyguy,

On my GS850GT there were two areas of concern, when I was having almost a 2.0V drop when measured at the load side of the fuse panel.

first was with the 4 pin connector off the ignition switch, where corrosion (and the resultant heat) had caused the the plastic hard shell to melt. second was the corrosion of the brass terminals in the fuse box, which were fixed with a little soldering of each terminal and a little emery paper applied to each tang where the fuses contact those terminals.

I am now down to a .45 volt drop which is still to much. (the rest, more than likely, is the Ignition switch)

I would suggest you check these areas first.

I did not realize this till I discovered it on my GS1100ED when doing all of that FET R/R testing. But this really demonstrates that the shunt R/R has to be connected not only directly across the battery but also with low impedance to the load.

If there is series resistance between the R/R (+) and the R/R (-) that does not allow the normal flow of power to the load, then the R/R output voltage will rise (as if it were open) which results in the R/R regulation kicking in. When the R/R regulation starts, it simply shorts all of the stator current back to the stator.

So if you run your charging system with connections like Psyguy shows, especially that double female bullet (if there was a contest for such a thing there could not be a worse connector made than the double bullet female) your R/R will run hot because the current is just being shorted back to the stator. Guess what is also getting hot? The stator because all of it's current is just being shorted back to it.

The Stator and R/R will only work reliably if the bike's loads (lights, ignition, and to a lessor extent the battery) absorb the energy being produced. If this does not occur the current gets shorted in the R/R back to the stator. This is high thermal stress and will result in failure of both.

[Speedo]

Psyguy,


3) Fit a coil relay modification as you will most likely have this same lower voltage at your coils, this then bypasses the ignition switch and feeds full battery via a new fresh wire and fuse directly to the coils and connect your sense wire to the battery wire at the coils. The load is taken off your 30 year old and tired switch and is then only used to switch the relay which is not bothered whether there is a slight voltage drop.
sharekey=3a0ab726f6117e564012e8015643d9c85717b31bf bde8fc1[/URL]

crap, hit "submit" instead of "preview"...bear with me here....

this (above) is really good advice. read it, understand it. if you don't get it, post us and we will try to explain.

Basically, the "sense" wire of the RR is designed to "sense" a need for battery voltage via charging system via sense wire tied to a "typical" wire in the whole deal - i.e. rear brake light switch. Only the problem is, with 30 yr old wiring, this brake light switch and most other wires on bike are 30yr old, crusty (like me) and have a LOT of resistance (like me also) so you have a HUGE voltage drop. Not good at all for "meter" of charging sys.

Think about this: if the brake light wire (or whatever wire) your RR "sense" wire is tied into is carrying (ie reads on your multi meter) 9v (like mine), that in essence is "ordering" your RR to tell stator to "Charge, charge, charge" since it's only seeing 9v and not 12v (which implies battery is charged and all is ok). Problem here is batt can be perfectly fine, system ("sense wire") is told to charge, it will charge, and it will cook your battery.

Does this make sense? If not, tell me and I will try to explain it better/a different way.

So what Matchless and others (and me) are telling you here in this post is:
IF your "sense wire" of your RR is connected to a wire that is losing voltage (which it prob is), CHANGE that sense wire connection to something better like the coil-mod "hot" wire (get your mmeter out and test it, you will see) which is much closer to 12v and will be a more accurate "sense wire" trigger for your 30yr old system. OR, simply hook sense wire to battery +POS and basically "bypass" sense circuit. Both are better than a wire with 9v telling the stator and regulator to allow to charge battery even tho it's 12.5v and full because then the system will continue to charge the battery ("sensing" that batt is down to 9v even tho it's not) and basically boil the water out of your battery and toast it into oblivion causing the bike to not start/possibly run bad.

sorry for such a long post but this is very important to understand. Do you get it?

[KiwiGS]

If you connect the sense wire direct to the battery it will flatten the battery, if the bike is left for a while.
That part of the r/r circuit has a small current draw all the time, which is why the sense is connected to a switched 12v.

[Speedo]

Respectfully, I believe that is incorrect Sir. Sense wire senses whatever you hook it up to and only senses when ignition switch is "on".

BassCliff, ShirazDrum help meus/ out here and/or correct me / one of us so no bad info is posted for others....